


Should I Stay or Should I Go?

by Lady_Midnight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Parallel Universes, Reunions, Unknown Spell Effects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Midnight/pseuds/Lady_Midnight
Summary: Stephen Strange cannot move past Tony's death and has been consumed by heartache to the point where his life feels meaningless, but a wayward spell meant for someone else might just give him is life back.
Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61
Collections: IronStrange Secret Santa 2019





	1. If I Go, There Will Be Trouble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nanosorcerer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanosorcerer/gifts).



> For nanosorcerer from the IronStrange Discord server for our secret santa! Apologizes for the lateness, my computer unfortunately died. But here is Chapter One, with the second chapter to follow as soon as I can re-write it from what I have here, unfortunately all that was saved after the crash was half of the second part D: Hope you (and anyone else that stumbles in) enjoys, this is my first fic, so apologies if its not the best >.<
> 
> And of course, I own nothing.

Stephen Strange fell in love with many Anthony Edward Starks over those 14, 000, 605 lifetimes. Stark was compassionate-caring-kind-soft, and angry-damaged-hurting-lonely in ways that pulled at the doctor’s heart. Stark had a passion for helping people that rivaled Stephen’s own and heart made of gold. Not ever lifetime they were close, but in a handful, they were, and those lifetimes changed the Sorcerer in an irreversible way. 

The Sorcerer felt numb as he stared out across the lake near the Stark Cabin, long after the funeral. He could not bare to turn around and look at the house, at the life he had torn this universe’s Tony away from. Could not meet the eyes of the wife and young daughter whom he robbed Tony away from. A part of Stephen was burning with the guilt of Tony dying to save them all.

But a larger part of him, a part that shamed him more than Tony’s death, ached for another reason. This huge whole, burning in agony, was for the personal loss of Tony from his life. A path that could have never been traveled in this universe but a path the Stephen yearned for all the same.

For Stephen Strange fell in love with his universes’ Anthony Edward Stark as soon as they locked eyes while Tony steadied him coming out of his trance looking for a way to win. In that moment Stephen was torn apart on the inside; his love for this beautiful man before him warring with the knowledge that the future battle for the universe only ends one way. They are too far into the timeline to reach any other conclusion. Tony would die, and Stephen would watch as the man he loved was comforted by another in his last moments. Tony would never think of Stephen as more than a comrade in arms.

The doctor in Stephen mused if the numbness his felt was his bodies way of protecting itself from heartache beyond what it could contain without shutting down completely. The sorcerer felt like he was falling apart at the seems for that to be true. 

Equally as likely, it could be that simply a part of Stephen had died with Tony, now both lost to him forever. 

As the cold started to creep in with the approach of nightfall, Stephen turned from the lake, opening a portal back to the New York Sanctum.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For years following Stephen dove into the duties of a Master of the Mystic Arts, and then Sorcerer Supreme. Defending Earth from mystic dangers and attacks. Outside of battles Stephen spent his time pouring over old books, learning new spells, and not much else. He was still numb from loss, drifting through the years. He started pulling away from Wong and the other sorcerers. After a particularly bad fight between the two, Wong returned to be the Librarian at Karma-Taj. They remained civil to each other and professional on the battlefield, but their friendship had fractured beyond repair. It was something Stephen felt regret over through the numbness that had spread through his heart, but his apathy kept him from being able to make amends.

It may have been for the best, for Stephen knew he was terrible company these days, and a shitty friend. The numb feeling that started since Tony’s death had only spread until there was not much Stephen could feel. He still stayed true to the oaths he had taken, both as a doctor and as Sorcerer Supreme. But he could not longer find the mental energy to put effort into anything that did not involve the protection of Earth.

It was during one of these encounters that Stephen Strange’s life took a turn he did not expect at all.

A sorcerer had started attacking the rebuilt London Sanctum, his motives unknown. The attacks had continued over a few months before the Karma-Taj masters had been able to track the sorcerer down. They managed to confront him before he had left the country, hoping to retain the wayward magic user without incident. That plan quickly feel through and the battle begin. Stephen was surprised at the strength of the other sorcerer and could not determine the purpose of half the spells being flung at them. After being thrown back by a few attacks that even his shields could barely deflect, he heard a shout to his left.

He turned to look and found Wong, wounded, about to be hit by a spell giving off a massive amount of energy. Stephen did not even think twice before placing himself in the path of the spell instead. Wong may no longer consider Stephen a friend, but Stephen could not forget everything Wong has done for him over the years, he would not let him die, if Stephen could die in his stead. 

Stephen sees the spell coming for him and shuts his eyes, braces himself for the unknown spell’s effects. The magic surrounds him, and for a moment it feels like his is being torn apart. And then….silence. Stephen slowly opens his eyes and looks around. The first thing he sees is the skyline of New York out a window-to-ceiling window. He follows the window from one end of the other and notices the end of a bed out of the corner of his eye. Then he hears a small, quick intake a breath behind him. Stephen turns around fully to face the bed and takes his own sharp breath. On the king sized bed, gun metal grey sheets pulled up to cover his chest, in a shocked looking Tony Stark.


	2. If I Stay It Will Be Double

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got away from me a little, but I hope you enjoy!
> 
> I own nothing but any grammatical or spelling mistakes <3

The two men started at each other for a few silent moments before Tony let out a shaky, “St..Stephen?”. Stephen was still to shocked for a moment to reply; here was Tony before him, someone he thought he lost forever. Had that spell ended his life? Or did it just simply break what was left of Stephen sanity? 

The sorcerer was broken out of his shock when he noticed Tony starting to panic on the bed, fighting the sheets he was wrapped in, breathing in short, panicked breaths. Instinct from a million lifetimes led Stephen lurching forward to catching Tony as he tumbled out of bed, holding him close and talking to him in a calming, low voice till Tony’s breathing was back under control. While it may not have been the best idea, as he clearly was the cause of the other man’s panic, Stephen also knew that finding out what was going on was going to be a lot easier without Tony in the middle of a panic attack.

“That’s it, easy, match my breaths. Now, can you try and keep calm for me Tony? We can figure out what is going on. It seems you are as surprised to see me as I am you.”

Stephen slowly let the man go, missing the warmth from his smaller frame almost immediately, but swallowing the feeling and the ache in his hands from catching Tony and pulling back to give Tony some space. Looking into Tony’s eyes, Stephen let out one final slow breath before flashing Tony a small smile as he nodded his agreement to try and remain calm.

Tony looked guarded, but that was to be expected, Stephen is sure he also be highly suspicions of someone who suddenly appeared in his bedroom. Intriguingly a small grain of hope in Tony’s expression slowly dimmed and disappeared the longer Tony observed Stephen in silence.

“So, I would ask if you are actually Stephen Strange, but unless A.I.M.’s bots are getting better, FRIDAY’s sensors are telling me you are who you look like.” A bittersweet smile crossed Tony’s mouth for a split second, and he continued, “I can also tell from the way you look at me, that you’re not my Stephen Strange. I can only guess; time travel or alternate universe?”.  
Stephen’s mouth twitched into an amused smile and a small chuckle. Only Tony Stark would be this practical in such a situation, that amazing brain of his making leaps and bounds to come down to the most logical solutions in seconds.

“I am unsure, but from what I can gather and what you’ve said so far, alternate universe is where I would place my bets. What did you mean by how I looked at you?” Stephen replied, his tone growing more somber with his next question. “Where is the Stephen Strange you hoped I would be?”.

Tony looked away, breath caught in his throat for a moment. When he turned back to Stephen, the sorcerer’s breath also catching for a moment; Tony’s eyes echoed an ache Stephen knew well. “H…he left to go to a solve a magic problem that had popped up in Nepal just over a year ago, and he…he….never came back from it.” Tony’s took a steading breath, “I should have never let him go alone, but you know what you are like,” Tony laughed humorlessly, “I should have pushed harder for Wong or someone else to go with him. The Masters went looking for him, but they could not find any trace of him. All this time I hoped, stupidly, that he was just missing, but…” Tony trailed off, turning away from Stephen and hugging his knees to his chest.

The doctor closed his eyes as Tony finished his explanation, mourning for a second his missed chance with his Tony. Musing what could be so different about this universe that led Tony Stark to loving Stephen Strange here. Stephen gave these thoughts a few more seconds to spill through his head before wiping them away, they are not helpful nor something he should entertain for long. Hoping his eyes, Stephen stood with a plan of action in mind.

“In my universe, we where fighting a mage and I was hit with a spell I have never seen before; I think it wise for me to visit the Karma-Taj of this universe to see if I can find some answers. I will return in a day or so.” He knelt in front of Tony’s curled form, “I am sorry that I have brought up painful memories, I’ll return soon, and we can get this mess sorted out.” Without thinking Stephen reached out and place a chaste kiss on Tony’s forehead, startling them both. In the silence that followed, Stephen quickly turned and made a portal to the Karma-Taj, stepping through hurriedly. He did not linger, Stephen was not sure he would be able to refrain from overstepping anymore boundaries he had no right to, if he stayed any longer.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Stephen received his second largest shot for the day as he stepped through the portal and recognized who stood in the library with him. Standing there with a knowing look on her face, was The Ancient One, her yellow robes cutting a sharp contrast in the room, keeping Stephen’s eyes from wander from her, not that he thought he could tear his sight from her if he wanted to. Once again Stephen was struck speechless, luckily, she gave him little time to speak anyway. 

“I was expecting you. I felt the moment your energies broke into our universe. My only question is to why you are here? Tea?” She motioned towards a tea set already set up at one of the tables. Stephen nodded and made his way over and sat down, rubbing his legs and attempting to fight through his shock to speak. 

“I...I missed you.” It was not what Stephen meant to say, and it startled him, his ear heating as soon as he processed what he had just said. 

“You miss her, not me, but I am flattered anyway.” She replied not unkindly. “The version of your who belonged to this universe had made me quite cross with what he did, I will agree to not hold that against you if you do not hold the actions of another version of myself against me.” 

The Ancient One poured the tea and added a little honey to each cup, sitting down and folding her hands in her lap, starting at Stephen in a way that never failed to get him to spill what was on his mind. “Tony, the Tony of this universe, told me that the Stephen Strange of this universe went missing after leaving to deal with some form of mystical emergency, do you know what happened to him?” It was not the question he meant to ask first, but he maybe while he was here, he could find closer for Tony.

“He died.”

Stephen stared at her across the table, wide eyed. It seemed shocking Stephen Strange was a common occurrence today. The matter-of-fact way she said it shook Stephen the most. “What do you mean he died?! How? Why have you not told Tony?”

The Ancient One tilted her head slightly and gave Stephen a sad smile. She seemed to be in a rare mood of actually answering his questions. That almost scared Stephen as much. “Tony Stark was having visions of a mad titan that was coming for our world. In interest of protecting the universe from destruction, Doctor Strange looked into any way to stop the path our universe had been traveling down, to stop the events that have come to pass in your universe before they could begin. Unfortunately, we were to far down the timeline already for there to have been few consequences to trying to change that path. Stephen learned what price the universe would ask in payment for victory.” 

At this she gave Stephen a sympathetic look, not judgmental, but he felt the creeping guilt anyway. 

“Stephen refused to let the universe take another pound of flesh in payment from Tony Stark and sacrificed himself to stop events leading to that future from coming to pass.” He was almost tempted to ask how he did it, but before he could decided if he wanted to know or not, The Ancient One continued, “it was not an option available to you Stephen, there was a single moment in the timeline, a single moment where the mad titan was vulnerable out in the deep reaches of space, in his domain, before he left to collect the stones himself. At that exact moment Stephen bound himself to the titan’s life force and ended them both.”

They both let that statement hang and contemplate in silence. It was broken after a while by The Ancient One clapping her hands and smiling again. “But, that is not why you are here; in this universe nor at the Karma-Taj, you seek answers about what happened to you, so tell me what you know before you came here.”

Stephen explained in detail the fight with the unknown mage, the magic he was wielding, and the mystic elements of the spell that caused Stephen’s dimension hopping. She listened carefully to his descriptions and asked a question here and there, but as Stephen come to the end of his tale, she closed her eyes slightly, hiding whatever emotion was reflecting in her eyes from the doctor’s view.

“I am afraid that I am aware of the spell in which you speak,” she intoned as she stood and moved towards her private collection of books in the library. Selecting one from chain binding, she brought the old tome back to the table and gentle flipped through the pages until stopping about midway through the book. 

“While it is not impossible, nor all that difficult to travel through dimensions and even alternate universes, it requires either a workable connection on each side, or a large amount of energy. The universe itself has a system to retain…homeostasis. While the average person could potentially travel across universes without upsetting this balance to greatly, people who are center points in the web of a universe’s timeline cause a much bigger stir. While the mage you fought was strong, he was also inexperienced enough to use this kind of spell for sending a being to another universe. It has a lot of risks, for using this method you cannon choose where they end up; a convenient way to make sure that whatever is sent out into the multiverse is not found again however. Should a spell hit someone who is significant to either the universe they are leaving or the one they land in, it can come with a heavy cost.”

The Ancient One closed the tome and turned back to Stephen. “The price for this kind of spell, if it does not outright kill the user, would drain all their magic down until they would no long be able to wield magic again.” At this, she looked meaningfully at Stephen. “I am sorry to say that the only way for you to return would be to counter this spell with a similar one.”

Stephen exhales slowly and picks up were she left off in a gravelly tone of defeat. “In other words, my options are to be stuck here, or to risk losing my magic, or death, attempting to return. If you permit me, I would like the chance to search the libraries for any other ways back.” 

She gave him a sad, knowing smile, but inclined her head in permission, before cleaning up the tea set and drifting out of the library as Stephen grabbed tomes off the shelves to start research.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After three days of little sleep and even less progress, Stephen had reached the last possible place he could think to look for another way back to his universe. He knew it was a long shot, just as The Ancient One knew he would not be satisfied unless he exhausted all possibilities himself.

Wary he opened a portal and stepped through, realizing he had unconsciously returned to Tony’s bedroom. At least this time Tony was not in bed. Stephen sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his tired eyes. Not five minutes later Stephen heard the sounds of Tony approaching the bedroom, likely FRIDAY having announced his presence to the inventor as soon as his portal appeared. 

“You look like shit.” Stephen snorted at the greeting from the other man and looked up, noticing Tony looked a little worse for wear as well, clearly having not slept much since Stephen left. It reminded the sorcerer of the information he had learned at the Karma-Taj, he also remembered that the ancient one had dodged his question about why Tony had not been told excellently. 

Tony slowly walked further into the room and sat down beside Stephen on the bed. Stephen swallowed and then told Tony about what he had learned of his Stephen’s fate. “That idiot, always trying to fix problems himself…I guess we’re both guilty of that.” Tony took the news surprising well, and some of that thought must have show on his face because Tony scoffed bitterly, “I kinda was expecting to learn he was dead, while a part of me was holding out hope, a larger part of me…felt that he was no longer here, if that makes any sense. 

Tony did not let Stephen dwell on that long before continuing, “but that’s not all you went there for, what did you learning about the mage dude and getting back to your universe?” With a grimace Stephen told Tony what The Ancient One had said and also summarized his research, “there is no way for me to return without using a counter spell crafted from the same base spell. Not only was likely a very heavy price payed to bring me to this universe where the Stephen Strange here had so drastically change the future, the spell reinforces the change. The price I will have to pay could be double what was payed to send me here. There is a chance that I might just loose a lot of strength, or loose my magic, and its not entirely a chance I would be unwilling to take.”

“Stephen, I think I can say I know Stephen Vincent Strange enough to know that your magic is such a huge part of you now, you would not survive that being ripped from you.” Tony argued back. 

“Well its not like I have a choice!” Stephen replied harshly, before immediately apologizing. How could Stephen stay and take the place of this universe’s Stephen Strange like a usurper. How would Tony not hate him for walking around with his lover’s face knowing that Stephen is the one he wants. Could Stephen live with knowing Tony was here, alive, and never see him so that Tony could have peace of mind not to be assaulted by the memories of a the man he married, long dead.

Stephen rose to his feet and stalked to the large windowed wall, passing back and forth, letting the silence fester between them. Tony sat still on the bed, head bowed, likely realizing ever reason why he should demand that Stephen take the risk to return to where he belongs. To return to the numbness and lonely existence of his universe without Tony. 

“Why don’t you stay”, Tony spoke into the quiet. Stephen looked at Tony, still on the bed, now staring up at him. His eyes equal parts challenging and pleading. Stephen opened his mouth to deny Tony’s request; how could Tony want him? He wasn’t the man this Tony married. 

And as if reading his mind Tony interrupted, “You’re not him, and I’m not your Tony…but does that really matter? I miss him so much that I can’t breathe some days.” Tony’s words echoed the ache Stephen felt in his heart. “We both lost the person we love, but I’m tired of loosing the people I love. Why don’t we tell the universe to go fuck itself and take this one thing for ourselves? Falling in love with Stephen Strange was one of the only good decision I have made in my life, I think many people would consider the chance to fall in love with the same person again a gift.” 

Tony reached for Stephen’s hand, as the sorcerer stood in a stunned silence. Maybe it was crazy for Stephen to consider this, but maybe the loss of his Tony really did fully break his sanity. If Stephen did even survive the return trip to his universe, more than likely he would lose his ability to use magic. That is a price Stephen could not say for sure his remaining sanity would survive paying.

Anthony Edward Stark deserved a better ending than either loosing is life or living with the loss of his heart. And maybe. Just maybe. Stephen Vincent Strange deserved a happy ending too. Stephen met Tony’s eyes, took his calloused, solid hand in his shaking one, placing a gentle kiss to the back of Tony’s hand, and said with a smile. “Fuck the universe”.


End file.
